The Remnants of the Gold City
by tulip meadow
Summary: Based on Nickolai of the North. Aurora Borealis, the Queen of the Northern Lights, frees some of the former elves from the Vortex. Will Magda - now a frightened woman with no recollection of her past - manage to start her life anew? Perhaps. But as usual - not alone...
1. Nothing

**Chapter 1. Nothing**

Everything was white with snow. Even the air. The blizzard blinded the woman's sight as she opened her eyes and sat on the snow.

The woman was a strange one. She was dressed in shabby dark-gray clothing, but her hands were adorned with genuine gold and silver jewelry. Her hair was mostly silvery, with just a few black tresses, but her face was quite youthful – a face of a thirty-year-old, maybe, or so. Her large black eyes were looking at the world with shock and confusion.

"What – what happened?" she murmured. Her voice was crackling a bit. "Who am I?"

She shivered – the frost was really getting to her. Then she spotted a small fire in the distance. It wasn't blown off by the wind and snow, strangely, but the fact didn't bother her. She hurried to it – and groaned. Her whole body, especially her heart, was aching.

The woman barely made it to the fire and literally fell near it. Warmth finally spread through her limbs and melted the icicles formed on her hair. But she still felt very bad, considering that she had no idea who she was.

She lay near the fire for hours, clenching her teeth from the terrible pain all over her. The howling wind terrified her, and whenever the sky cleared a bit, the woman saw the green and pink glow of aurora borealis above her, and this glow gave her the shudders – she didn't know why.

After some time, the pain subsided a little. Enough to give the woman energy to think.

"All right," she said aloud. "What do we have? I don't remember who I am. I don't remember how I got here. I don't remember why I am here. I don't even know where is here! I remember absolutely nothing, and I must be suffering from some terrible sickness – as if someone is cutting me into pieces… Also I'm so very hungry and want to drink… The only literally bright side is that I have a fire. Oh, and also a lot of snow which is actually – oh yes, which is water!"

She grabbed several handful of snow and put them into her mouth. The snow was very clean, and the water it made tasted good.

The woman swallowed enough snow to stop her throat feeling dry as rice paper, and resumed thinking aloud:

"Let's have a look at what I look like. I think I must be old – my hair is gray. But my skin has no wrinkles at all. I wear poor clothing but such nice jewels! Oh, my identity's a puzzle indeed."

She deliberately tried to adopt ironic tone to cheer herself up. For the same reason she rose her hands to her face to examine her jewels. Also, she hoped the jewels could wake some memories in her.

"Right hand: a ruby bracelet. A thin silver ring, the rest of the rings are of gold. One amber ring. Another, I think, turquoise one – goodness, what a motley collection. Left hand: a spinel and opal bracelet, a golden ring with a grayish sort of diamond, a ruby ring. Well, it conveys nothing to me – except for the fact that I probably was some terrible vain peacock, with no taste at all," she commented.

Suddenly, her gaze stopped at the grayish-diamond ring. There was nothing about it – except that it was on the ring finger.

"Was I engaged?" the woman asked the snowdrifts and the fire. "Oh, how dreadful it is if I was – my fiancé, if he's alive, must be going mad from worry about me. I hope if he exists, he's alive. It's such a consoling thought that at least someone in this world knows and loves you!"

She was feeling a bit better. She was getting used for the pain – not that it didn't bother her, but she could talk and move. And the thought of engagement gave her an additional reason to leave the nice warm fire and start searching through the snowy arctic fields, looking for herself.

She got up and determinedly marched through the snow. Thankfully, the blizzard had stopped.

As the woman walked on, she desperately tried to grasp at least some memory of her previous life. But it was useless. She stared at the grayish-diamond ring until tears welled in her eyes, hoping the ring would remind her of her fiancé. Still no memory came.

Here and now, she called for help – yet no one answered. The polar fields around her were empty and quiet.

Finally, the pain became unbearable again and the wanderer collapsed on the snow. She lay there, waiting to die of cold. It would anyway be better than the suffering in this white icy desert.

Suddenly, she felt something warm push her shoulder. The woman turned her head and gasped: a pack of wolves was staring at her. The leading wolf was leaning over her.

"Probably choosing where to begin eating…" she guessed. She wanted for the suffering to end, yes, but not in such a horrifying way! Freezing in the snow or fading from hunger is still better than being torn to pieces alive by wild wolves!

The leader of the pack growled something. The wolves slowly approached the helpless woman. She couldn't even cry for help – her throat was so sore her voice came in a whisper.

The pack surrounded her, their yellow eyes sparkling.

**Review please!**


	2. Where the Wolves' Path Led

**Chapter 2. Where The Wolves' Path Led**

But the wolves only stared at the woman, not moving or attempting to strike. Suddenly, the leader opened his jaws and growled in quite an intelligible language:

"Magda. You're to come with us."

"Magda – is it my name?" the woman whispered and coughed. The wolf nodded. Obviously, speaking was as hard to him as to her (with her sore throat). "Who are you? Am I supposed to know you?"

"No. We were summoned," the wolf explained. "Get up. Go."

"I can't move a hand, let alone go anywhere!" Magda (so that was her name – a pretty one, she thought) groaned. "I'm dying of hunger and in the whole feel like a squashed caterpillar! If you want me to walk, at least get me some food."

Several wolves heard it and ran away.

"Wait. Food," the leader said.

"I hope it's not human meat," Magda shuddered.

"No. Lemmings. Gulls. Bears."

In half an hour, the wolves returned. Each was carrying a sack at its back. Magda took one of the sacks and opened it to find a large piece of boiled meat. Her mouth watered. She pulled off a loaf of it with her fingers and ate. The meat may have been cold, but Magda felt she had never eaten anything better. She finished the dinner with several handfuls of snow again and cried:

"Oh thank you so much! Where did you get the meat?"

"There," the leading wolf informed her, turning his head left. "Let's go."

The wolves helped her to get up, and they walked together in the direction the leader had shown. Magda was trying to sort out her mind again. Her name did sound vaguely familiar to her, so what if some memories were hidden in her consciousness?

"Where am I?" she asked the wolves.

"Arctic," the leader replied. "Near North Pole."

"How did I get here?" Magda continued her questioning.

"From the vortex," the wolf said as if it was the most well-known fact on Earth.

"Goodness, what vortex?"

"The vortex," the wolf repeated dully.

"Where are you taking me?" Magda asked, seeing that she had no chance to find out anything about the vortex thing.

"There," the leader said, pointing ahead with his paw.

Magda panicked. What if the wolves were going to kill her after all? Maybe they had some primitive minds and would feed her just to get her fat and eat her later? What if they were… she searched her brain for the word and luckily found one… werewolves? In that case they were probably going to make some ritual and then bite her, so that she would be one of them?

"Please," she begged. "If you want to kill me, do it now. I can't stand this waiting."

"Won't kill," the leading wolf said.

"Are you werewolves?" the woman asked, trembling.

"What are werewolves?"

Apparently, this is a no, Magda guessed and relaxed a little. Maybe they were trained wolves – train by some Inuit or Icelandic people. They would take her to a village of some kind, where she would at least get a temporary shelter…

Suddenly, she did see a group of Inuit men walking towards her. The wolves surrounding her stood still, stiffened, and bared their deadly fangs.

One of the men… no, a boy of no more than sixteen stepped ahead.

"You're alive!" he yelled at Magda. "_Aktuk_! Are you planning to restore your precious city? Well, that won't do! People are warned now!"

Magda was more than shocked:

"Dear boy, you must have confused me with someone! I… I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm not an idiot, Magda, and neither are my parents and friends. You won't fool us with this faked naivety. Better tell us what are you planning."

The leading wolf interrupted:

"Lady lost her memory."

"Well!" the Inuit boy raised an eyebrow, not knowing whether to believe it. "And what if I told you there are several helpless elfin children just half a mile there?" he pointed to the left. "With their respective Light Fairies?"

He was checking if I really lost my memory, Magda realized. How am I supposed to react?

After a pause, another man from the group said to the boy:

"I think she did lose her memory, Zak. Even Magda wouldn't be able to adopt such a disguise."

"Alright," the boy grunted. "I'm sorry, miss, I lied – there are no elfin children around. I hope you will now lead a better life."

"Let's go," the leading wolf said and pulled Magda's sleeve. She awkwardly nodded at the people and reluctantly followed the wolves. Actually, she'd have liked a chance to talk to Zak. She'd be able to find out more about her past. But… perhaps… Magda remembered the boy's words and shivered. What was her past like? What could she have done with elfin children or Light Fairies, hadn't she lost her memories?

Light Fairies… A blurry image came up in her head: a tiny winged girl with sparkling golden hair, in a greenish yellow dress.

"Did I know this boy, Zak?" she asked the wolves.

"Yes," the leader said, after a moment of hesitation. "Hated."

"I hated him? Or he hated me?"

"Both."

Magda froze. _What_ sort of person was she?

"And what was the city Zak talked about?"

"The Golden City."

"I built it?"

"Yes."

The woman frowned and clenched her teeth, repeating the words in her mind, hoping some faint remembrance would well up. There was nothing – only a momentary flash of bright, unnatural golden color.

Suddenly she looked at her companions and came up with a very interesting thought:

"How do you know all this if I didn't know you before?"

"Have heard. Were told," was the leader's short response.

They walked further in silence until Magda cried:

"Oh, please, how long will it take us to get wherever we are heading? My whole body aches, I'm tired and hungry again."

"Soon," the wolves promised.

Indeed, in only several minutes they saw the light of a fire. In another several minutes, they approached it.

A rather scary-looking man was sitting in front of the fire, carving something from a wooden log with an odd white knife. The man was dark-haired with skin of a shade of dark-yellow color, like that of the Inuit people. His eyes were bright green with yellow sparkles, like a wolf's eyes, and his slightly opened mouth showed sharp wolfish-like teeth.

He looked up as the group came to the fire. The leading wolf lay on the ground and looked down:

"She lost her memory."

"I can see it myself," the man smirked. "If she's standing here and just blinking her eyes instead of trying to throw me back into the vortex or _at least_ yelling and blaming everything on me, there is definitely something wrong with her head. All the better."

"Am I supposed to know you as well?" Magda asked carefully.

"Oh, Magda, don't say you have no memories of me," he laughed, mockingly hurt but also probably genuinely surprised. "I was your first advisor and assistant. My wolves were your most faithful guardians. And, if I recall correctly, you promised to marry me."

"Marry you?" the woman cried, glancing at her grayish-diamond ring.

"Of course. Had we not fallen into the vortex… Oh, by the way, tell me how you survived."

"I don't know!" Magda said. "I woke up in the snow, and then the wolves found me. Anyway, what was 'the vortex'?"

"The fire vortex that led to the center of Earth!" the man now didn't try to hide his astonishment. "Don't tell me you've forgotten even that!"

"I tell you I don't remember a thing!" Magda exclaimed.

He shrugged:

"Fine. Then I'll now send the wolves to bring us some meat, and after a supper I suppose I'll have to tell you about your own life."


	3. A New Start

**Chapter 3.A New Start**

"Could you tell me a few things right now?" Magda asked. "For example, what is your name and how and why did I get engaged to you?"

The man sent the wolves away and chuckled:

"All right. Well, my name's Volpo. And if you're expecting a dazzling tale of romance, rescue, love at first sight, or something like that, I'm afraid you won't get it. You agreed to marry me because I blackmailed you into it."

"What?" Magda couldn't believe her ears. He was sitting there and calmly saying such horrible things!

"You were in a big trouble. It was your own fault, and even you began to realize it," Volpo continued. "I, on the other hand, was quite glad about all it, because you ceased threatening and torturing me for every small fault. I very much enjoyed life as it became, so when you begged me to help you, I gave you an ultimatum. Either you stay as you are – or I will help you and you'll marry me and treat me nicely. You were furious at first, but then surrendered."

Magda stared at him, shocked.

"I think you're heartless," she finally uttered.

"_Me_ heartless? Look at yourself."

The woman paled:

"What was I like before?"

The wolves appeared again, carrying several large loaves of fresh meat.

"Eat it, then I'll tell you," Volpo said.

Magda obeyed. They sat silently for half an hour, for both had been simply starving.

After finishing the meat, Volpo told Magda everything about her previous life. How she was born in the Elfin Kingdom and grew up to be a beautiful and smart young lady. How she learned about the magnetic powers of the Earth and figured that she would be the queen of the world if she could control them. How she was banished from the Kingdom into the fire vortex for trying to reach these magnetic fields. How she regained her power and turned the elves to stone, and then tried to achieve eternal youth and beauty by taking childhood away from kids, and eternal powers by absorbing all the light in the world. How she was defeated by Nickolai, the only surviving elf.

"And then, Magda, your story ends," Volpo concluded. "I last saw you falling into the vortex – seconds before myself. Then I too have a blank in memory, before I felt someone pulling me out of the magma. I found myself standing on the snow near a small fire, in front of a majestic lady dressed in green and red, with flowing shining green hair and bone white skin.

"'Who are you?' I asked. She said:

"'I'm Aurora Borealis, the Queen of the Northern Lights and the great ancestor of both Light Fairies and Elves. I hate to have my descendants killed in the fire vortex, so I asked Ignis and Magma – the wizards who rule there – to spare the lives of those who are not yet hopeless in their evil. So they did. Fourteen of the former elves were given back or partly given back their elfin appearance and thrown out of the vortex. Including you and Magda. You're the only ones not returned to the Elfin Kingdom, you are banished from there after all. Remember this: if you try to meddle with the fates of people and the whole world like you did, you will go back to the vortex at once.'

"I wanted to ask some more questions, but the lady disappeared. So I had no choice but to sit by the fire and think of what to do. I found out my ability to talk to wolves was still working, so I called this pack to bring me meat and sharp bones (to use as knives), and then to find and retrieve you."

"And why did you want to find me? You told me yourself you didn't love me." Magda inquired. Volpo raised an eyebrow:

"Well, love or no love, it's much better to have an elfin being around you than to live alone. I would go mad or turn into a wolf myself if I led such a life. And what about you? You'd have just died in the cold."

"Maybe it would have been better," Magda sighed. "I still can barely remember anything of my life – and to think of it… I was such a terrible person…" she burst into tears.

"Aurora Borealis said we both are not hopeless," Volpo said firmly. "She didn't pull us out of the vortex so that we would craze or die."

"So what do you suggest we do?" Magda raised her tear-soaked face. Volpo thought for a while.

"Well, I think we should go south. With my wolves around, we won't starve to death and we'll have wood and practically everything we need. We'll someday reach a nice small town or village, and that's where we'll settle down and be married…"

"What?!" Magda jumped. "Now that I'm not the threatened queen of the Gold City, and you're not my advisor, I absolutely refuse to be married to you!"

"Magda, as I've said, it's better for us elves to stick together. Also, you now are with no knowledge of magic, so, as I've said as well, you'll die on your own in these icy deserts if I leave you…"

"Why are you so concerned about me?"

"I'm not. I just don't want to be alone among humans. With my 'odd' elfin appearance, I would be the object of laughter and distrust. If there are two of us, it would be more tolerable to others. What is more, apart from your atrocious hair color, you have regained your pretty looks," his eyes examined her face and figure.

"I wish I _was_ still able to throw you into the vortex," Magda said through gritted teeth. "And I suppose you intend to leave me alone here if I refuse?"

"You suppose rightly."

Magda's first intention was to stand up proudly and walk away, but a fresh wave of pain jolted through her body. Combined with the exhaustion and the discovery of her awful past, it was too much. She whimpered and collapsed on the ground.

"You selfish, cruel, uncaring, ruthless man," she said with tearful eyes. "Yes, I think I have no choice but to agree."

Volpo flashed her a triumphant smile:

"You really should thought of all this before you began to control the Earth's magnetic powers."

"I wonder why Lady Aurora Borealis thinks you are not hopeless," she snapped back. "I wish you had lost your memory."

After that, her still sore throat hurt so much that it was impossible to speak anymore. Magda wept quietly, until she fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.


	4. The Village of Ataitchuaq

**Chapter 4. The Village of Ataitchuaq**

After what seemed like mere minutes Magda was awakened by Volpo's voice:

"Wake up! The blizzard has quieted, we should go."

He shoved her a piece of meat, already boiled and even with added sea salt, and Magda got up and sat on the snow.

"Why must we go?" she asked sleepily. "Isn't it better to stay here, near the fire? Wolves can bring us wood to keep it."

"For how long? Are you planning to spend the rest of your life right here? If you are, anyway, I'm not. I'm going to find some human settlement."

Magda sighed and murmured a few things addressed to Aurora Borealis, who spared Volpo's life.

"Stop mumbling and have your meal, then we'll go," Volpo said impatiently.

"Are _you _sorry for what we had been doing in the Gold City?" Magda unexpectedly asked. "Would you go back to that time, if given a chance?"

"Never in the world," he snapped. "When we were banished into the vortex – for the first time, I mean – you promised to make me powerful. Instead, you used my ideas as your own and made me a scapegoat for every outburst of anger. You enjoyed luxury and, save for stealing the childhood, did practically nothing – after the Gold City was finished. While I had to watch, spy, control Skank and Skism and the goblin police, and do countless other things. And I bet you that if you hadn't lost your memory, you wouldn't be sorry for anything."

"But as I _have_ lost my memory, I regret all of this," Magda whispered. "I think I'll never be able to live with this."

"Well, you are living," Volpo said. "I think you will continue doing so. Not everyone knows us by sight, so we can live in the same places as humans. So let's go!"

Magda reluctantly got up, and they walked away from the fire. Volpo ordered his wolves to bring them two polar bears' furry skins, and they both were now wrapped in these warm white mantles. Magda's ache was a little better after her sleep, as was her sore throat. She would have felt calm, had it not been for her grief for her past and the future perspective of marriage with Volpo.

They walked for several hours, until they noticed several lights of some village on the horizon.

"We'll pass as European adventurers who want to settle in the Wild North," Volpo said. "It's relatively close to the former Gold City, so we must use fake names. Our faces may not be known, but our – ahem! uncommon names will be outstanding. Let's say I'm Leopold, and you're Margaret. And we both are Germanic."

He briefly looked at himself, then at Magda.

"Your hair," he commented. "It's odd. We must dye it black or at least some other color than silvery. With a face in its twenties and hair in its seventies you'd look quite extravagant."

He whistled for his wolves.

"Bring some flints, a wide concave bone, and several handfuls of brown clay," he ordered. The Chief (Magda shortly called the leading wolf so) nodded, and soon the pack returned with everything requested.

The flints were used to make a fire, and the clay was put into the bone and fused, then mixed with melted snow. Magda cried:

"Are you going to paint my hair brownish red?"

"It's no better than silvery, but it will look natural for your youthful face," Volpo said. Despite her protests, soon her hair indeed painted the exact color of bricks.

In an hour, Albert and Hilda Ernholt, the owners and hosts of The White Walrus Inn in the village of Ataitchuaq, heard a knock on the door. Hilda opened the door to reveal two people, a man and a lady, clad in bear skins. The man's complexion and hair were not unlike Inuit, but his facial features were much broader. His ears were pointed, and his teeth, when he smiled, unusually white and sharp. The lady's looks were much more difficult to examine, because she was apparently frozen and kept her face hidden in the fur. Hilda could only see her hair that were of an ugly dirty red color, and her ears – pointed as well.

"Hello, ma'am. We're traveling from Schwartzwald, and would like to settle in this village. Until we built our own house, we'd want a room in your inn," the man said authoritatively. "We can't pay you right now, but Margaret has some jewels for sale, and soon we'll have enough money for a fresh start."

"Very well, sir," Hilda smiled welcomingly. "I'll send a maid to prepare your room right now. What are your names?"

"Leopold Wulfen and Margaret Schmidt-Guldengard," the man said. "Or better to say, write down the names already as Leopold and Margaret Wulfen," he glanced at his companion. The woman didn't react.

"Alright, sir. But how many rooms should I prepare – one or two?"

"One, we're going to be officially married today evening."

"I see. My congratulations."

"Thank you."

There had never been such odd guests in the small and quiet village of Ataitchuaq. Not a minute had passed after the couple was shown to the room, and Hilda and Albert were already discussing them with the local gossips.

"The lady is the strangest of the two," Hilda said decidedly. "She never raised her face, let alone spoke, since they arrived."

"They must have eloped," Rekko, her friend, guessed. "Hence their secretiveness and the lady hiding her face."

"Or perhaps he had kidnapped her," Albert added. "She must be a Germanic aristocrat. Her surname is double: Schmidt-Guldengard. She is hiding her face from shame."

"Oh, no, no!" Hilda laughed. "The woman has nothing aristocratic about her. Her hair is done in a simply terrible way! And it looks as if it hasn't been washed for months. I'm also sure she's ugly. A good-looking lady – whether aristocratic or peasant – will never keep her hair in such a state."

As the villagers were conjuring guesses about the couple, each guess wilder than the previous, Volpo was quietly telling Magda about his plans for the further future:

"I think I'll open a shop. I'll sell meat and also carve knifes and other useful things from bones and wood. You can learn to weave, sew, and embroider, and we will prosper. For now, you'll have to sell your jewels. I've looked at the list of guests of this inn. I saw there a name of one _Sir Joseph Moore, an English explorer, sent by His Majesty to study the culture of Northern tribes_. I bet you he'll give you a fine bit of money for your jewelry. Honestly, apart from the engagement ring, what else do you need?"

Magda said nothing, only nodded. She didn't want to anger Volpo, he appeared to be mad at her after how she treated him before.

"Then take off your jewels, and I'll go and sell them right now," Volpo said. "That Sir Moore can leave any moment."

Magda took off every piece of jewelry save for the engagement ring, and Volpo went to sell them.

Finally alone, Magda was free to cry in despair. She was afraid she would burst if she always hid her despair. And she was obviously doomed to despair for eternity. Her past, the past of a cruel tyrant witch, was, to put it mildly, nothing to be proud of. Her future was the future of an unloving and unloved wife of a controlling fierce man.

"I believe I deserve my future," she whispered in hysterics. "For what I did to poor elves and the people of the Gold City… But it's so hard to accept – especially since I barely remember anything from my life!.."

"Fraulein Schmidt-Guldengard?" a maid knocked on the door. "Would you and your groom like a ceremonial meal for your wedding?"

Oh well, a ceremonial meal is _exactly_ what I need now, Magda thought sarcastically.

"I'm exhausted and trying to sleep," she said, imitating a sleepy voice. "Please let me rest. Just let me rest."

"Of course, sorry," and the maid left.

In ten minutes, Volpo returned with a large bag, full of gold coins.

"Sir Moore thought I was a fool," he laughed. "Pretended the gemstones were glass. Wanted to send me away with a few copper coins! Naturally, I wasn't like that."

Magda opened her mouth to comment on it, but Volpo cut her short:

"Come, let's have dinner."


End file.
